Nightwatchers
by Saucery
Summary: Derek isn't exactly Batman. Stiles isn't exactly Robin. Still, somehow, they make it work.
1. Chapter 1

**NIGHTWATCHERS**

**- Chapter I -**

* * *

><p>He's sixty-five feet above ground and rappelling off the edge of a high-rise building, and it's <em>imperative<em> that he not drop either of the two sets of surveillance equipment he's just salvaged _from_ said building, so naturally that is the exact moment he chooses to drop the radio.

"Shit," he says, and watches it smash onto the windshield of a parked car.

Possibly he isn't suited to vigilantism. Possibly he needs to be better coordinated. Possibly he shouldn't just _hang_ there, swinging like a particularly pathetic spider, gaping at the street below.

From this height, and under the moonlight, the broken glass glitters like fairy dust.

"_Shit_."

His name is Stiles Stilinski, but most people know him as the Ghost. Or _don't_ know him; that's kind of the point, the not-knowing. Ghosts that people actually _know_ about usually acquire bad reputations, as - as poltergeists or something, so it's actually a _blessing_ that most people know fuck all about Stiles' identity.

Yeah. A blessing. Especially since he really can't afford to pay for insurance _or_ for the damage he's just done to that car. If the owner knew his name, he'd have to pay up. God, he's a horrible person. A horrible vigilante. Maybe he'll - he'll put in a couple extra hours at the soup kitchen this weekend. Compensate in some way for wrecking an innocent civilian's private property. _Fuck_.

Well, at least he's got the main stuff. The tapes with Congressman Lehrer's sordid backroom dealings, and the - the porn, okay, it's _porn_, but at least it isn't child porn, just really bizarre amateur stuff with horse costumes and saddles, and while Stiles usually isn't in favor of airing anyone's dirty laundry, Lehrer washes _his_ laundry with public money, and that - that really isn't on. Lehrer can hire as many whores as he wants on his own tab, damn it; hiring them on the _city's_ tab, and then bribing public officials to hush it up, is going a bit too far. The fact that there are some prominent mafia names on the clientele list of Lehrer's preferred whorehouse is also interesting. _Very_ interesting.

Stiles is going to make sure these tapes make it to the police. And the media.

_And_ Derek Hale. Which is kind of how they roll. Derek threatens to kill Stiles whenever Stiles shows up, but he ends up using the intel, anyway. Stiles is well aware of the fact that he's a stupid, bumbling teenager that can't even rappel down the side of a building without giving himself a wedgie, so obviously, he can't administer justice personally or beat down or tie up any actual criminals. All he can do is gather information _on_those criminals, and then pass it on to the badass mofo that can whup their asses.

That mofo is Derek Hale. Also known as Howl, because of the whole grows-fur-and-fangs-in-the-light-of-the-full-moon thing. Stiles _tries_ not to call him a werewolf. That would be passé.

Stiles manages to hang onto the remaining equipment as he grapple-hooks and swings and awkwardly skitters his way home. Jesus, this shit ain't easy. God damn all those comic books for making it look like flying, anyway. If this is flying, then Stiles is a drunken duck. The key point being that _ducks can't fly_. Not the domestic ones, at any rate. Not really.

Still, he hangs on to the stuff, and repeats the car's license number in his head, over and over. He'll find some way to pay the owner back. Somehow. Maybe he'll mow Derek's obscenely massive lawn. That alone should earn him a thousand bucks.

Not that Derek will ever pay him. Or let him near the mansion. Or the lawn. He'll probably shoot Stiles dead before he passes the fifteen-acre defense perimeter. Because Derek totally _does_ have a defense perimeter. Hell, the man _is_ a defense perimeter. Stiles ought to know; he keeps trying to breach it.

God, that came out wrong.

He's got the license plate memorized by the time he gets home.

"Hey, Dad," he says, after depositing the equipment in his room and taking off his mask and his gloves. He changes into his pajamas, ruffles his hair into some approximation of a bedhead, and groggily saunters out of his bedroom like he's just coming out for a midnight snack. Like he hasn't just been out clambering ungracefully across rooftops. "Dad?"

Dad isn't home. As usual. This is a _good_ thing, because it means that Stiles has gone another night without getting found out, but it's also a _bad_thing, because his Dad's still out on patrol in a crazy city, where there are more guns than paper-clips and more killers than secretaries. Hell, sometimes the killers even _are_ secretaries.

He sighs. And grabs some milk from the fridge, and guzzles it, and pads back upstairs to his room to hook in his one remaining radio. He's going to keep an ear out for anything that might go bump in the night. He's got the camera feeds and the street footage hooked up to his computer, too, so he'll know what happens even before the police do, and he'll make sure the right people get informed at the right time. As far as they know, it's just the mysterious Ghost, giving them anonymous tip-offs about shit that's going down in their city, and broadcasting - as always - on a scrambled frequency. Stiles is pretty sure they actually appreciate his help, even though their _official_ stance is that vigilantism and the hacking of government satellites is a bad, bad thing.

Whatever. They're still on the hunt for him, but if he plays his cards right, no one's ever going to figure out that the Ghost is a C-grade high-schooler and a middle-aged cop's son. And it isn't like he's doing anything but helping the cops - and, occasionally, Howl - in hunting down and catching the scum that give this city a bad name. Sure, Beacon Hills is... not exactly a beacon, of _anything_, let alone hope, but the people here are pretty nice, so long as they aren't being terrorized by gang wars and corrupt politicians and weird fashion trends.

Stiles slides on his head-set and tunes into the police channel.

_"Pursuit in progress along - " _static_ " - ur Boulevard. Suspect believed to be carrying - " _static_ " - plosives."_

Well, damn.

He pulls out his cell and punches in Derek's number. Which Derek will - again - threaten to kill him for using, later, but it'll be _later_, after the lives of everyone on Stosur Boulevard have been saved.

"Yo, Sourwolf - wait, no, don't hang _up_ - "

Another night, another phone call. They might as well be _dating_, now.

* * *

><p>It's ink-dark in the alley, and quiet except for the muted, meaty thuds of a thug being resolutely beaten into submission. Stiles does the polite thing and waits just around the corner, clutching his parcel of Congressman Lehrer's incriminating photographs. He'd spent all of this afternoon developing them in his very own dark room, which he'll probably have to sanctify with holy water or something, because <em>damn<em>, that is some major bad-wrong Lehrer gets down to in those photos. Or gets _up_ to - strung up to - no, not thinking about it. _Not_. He's been scarred for life enough, already. And how sad is it that even a depraved old bastard like Lehrer has gotten laid more in one week than Stiles has in his entire_life_?

"Um, hi," he says, as soon as Derek's done with the perp and has left him zip-stripped for the cops. "Should I make the call? Or d'you just wanna leave him for - _ow_," he says, because suddenly, he's slamming into the alley wall and looking up at a pair of feral, glowing eyes.

And a mouth full of _teeth_, or, uh, _fangs_, and that's really -

"Don't kill me?" he croaks, and the clawed hands at his collar loosen. Slightly. From 'deadly' to 'threatening'.

"You," says Howl, and it _is_ Howl, now, not Derek Hale. It's only because Stiles knows what Derek's real identity _is_ that he can even recognise the man under all that wolf.

"Yeah, me. Hello."

Howl slams him against the wall. Again.

"_Ouch_. You don't have to keep _doing_ that."

"I told you to stay away from my crime scenes."

"Dude, you realise that makes it sound like _you're_ the criminal, right? They aren't _your_ crime scenes, they're - okay, okay, don't bite my _face_ off. Jeez. I'm just trying to _help_ - "

"How did you find me."

It isn't even a question. "Satellites, genius. Like always. And, you know, keeping track of radio stations - people call in sightings all the time, you're really popular, you know that? I mean, there's only so many shirtless werewolves running around and jumping walls. The chicks think you're hot." _I think you're hot_. No, wait. He's supposed to be professional, here. Even though it's becoming increasingly difficult with an insanely muscled body pressed against his. _Fuck_.

"You. You hack into government satellites."

"Haven't we covered that before? Yes, I'm breaking the law, which means you should mince me and fry me on a high flame, but then again, you're_also_ breaking the law by going vigilante on some poor bastard's ass, so we're even. We're doing it for the _greater good_. That's what counts, right? Method and motive?"

Howl… looks at him.

"Or maybe it doesn't count. Maybe you're going to mince me _anyway_ - "

"Hand. Me. The photos."

Stiles hands him the photos.

Derek - because his eyes have become human again, and his face a lot less _psychotic_ - scans the photos at speed. And then, when he's done, he just pulls a lighter out of his back pocket and _sets them on fire_.

"Hey! What - it took me _ages_ to get that stuff together!"

"There should be no paper trail." The pictures are now a pile of perfectly indistinguishable ashes.

"Right." Stiles stares. "Sure. I'll just - stop getting weirded out by the fact that that is _exactly_ what Lehrer says when he fu - uh, screws around in barely-legal brothels and gets the public to pay for it."

"There may be more to it than that."

"Really? So it _isn't_ just a coincidence that Tony Russo visits the same, er, establishment?"

"No," says Derek, quietly. "It is not."

"Well, shit. Just what we need in this city - the freaking _mafia_ making inroads into politics."

"The mafia has always made inroads into politics."

"And Howl has always rooted them out?"

Derek's eyes gleam. He's wolfing out again, and - well, that certainly bodes _ill_ for Tony Russo -

"Um, I'm. Glad to help. You're still… thinking about my offer?"

"No."

"No, you're _not_ thinking about it anymore because you're going to say _yes_, or no, to, like, the offer?"

"I will not train you."

"Oh, come _on_, man. Wolf. Wolf-man. Batman needs a Robin, okay? And Howl needs a - uh, probably something that's less like a bird he can _eat_, but - I've already _proven_ myself. I'm _useful_ - "

"You're a nuisance."

"I'm not, and you know it." Stiles is glaring. He probably _shouldn't_ be glaring at a guy who can kill him with his _bare hands_, but - "Don't you dare say that to me."

Derek's - _Howl's_ eyes narrow.

Stiles gulps. "Or, uh. You _can_ say that to me, but you can't actually expect me to believe it, all right? Not when even _you_ don't believe it. Look. I'll be safer _and_ more useful if you teach me some of that martial arts stuff - "

"Stuff," Howl says. Slowly.

Stiles flushes. "Aikido and kalaripayattu and goddamn _muay thai_, I don't even - all the martial arts stuff you know. Hell, _any_ of it. Anything that'll let me go after Russo, _too_ - "

"You are not going after Russo."

"Why the hell _not_? I can get intel that'll put the bastard in prison as soon as you've caught him, and - you _know _it won't work if you just beat on him, the guy's a _snake_ - "

"Kid."

Stiles - grits his teeth. "I'm not a kid."

"Says the sixteen-year-old with the comics collection and the shelf full of action figures."

"You _know_ about - hey, wait, have you been stalking me _back_?"

Howl… is Derek again. A kind of _amused_-looking Derek, and if it wasn't so goddamn scary, Stiles would - do something. Possibly something that wouldn't have anything to do with his _dick_, which is choosing _just_ this moment to wake up and notice the fact that even though Derek isn't still pressed against him, he's still awfully _close_, and the faint scent of other people's _blood_ on him isn't a turn-off, at _all_ -

"Whatever you're smelling on me right now, you're going to ignore it. Right?" _Please ignore it_.

Derek snorts. And turns away. "Go home," he says, and just - leaps onto the rooftop of the nearest building.

Stiles is never going to get used to seeing that. Sometimes, it feels like he'll never stop _masturbating_ to the memory of that -

"You're welcome!" Stiles calls after him. "For, you know, all the help I gave you that you just profusely thanked me for!"

Derek pauses on the edge of the rooftop - backlit by the moon and already, visibly transformed into Howl - before he disappears.

Yeah.

Gratitude. Someday, Stiles is going to get some.

But _now_, what he really needs to get is _sleep_, but only after he's gone back to his room and put the radio on an auto-sweep, set to wake him whenever the computer senses any word that matches a police code for a homicide, grand theft or violent assault.

And if he gets to call Derek and hear his _voice _after each wake-up?

That's just a perk he's going to keep to himself.

* * *

><p><strong>click below to read the next chapter.<strong>


	2. Chapter 2

**NIGHTWATCHERS**

**- Chapter II -**

* * *

><p>Lehrer's downtown servers are proving resilient. Which means it's time to call in the big guns. Gun. Not that Stiles sneaks looks in the locker room or anything, but Danny's 'gun' is pretty big. Danny's boyfriend says it is, too.<p>

So Stiles slings himself into the seat across from Danny - who, incidentally, is also some sort of hacker genius that got arrested for breaking the FBI's defenses when he was _thirteen_ - and smiles.

Not the shit-eating smile. This is the painfully sincere, I-will-die-if-you-do-not-feed-the-helpless-kitten-that-is-me smile.

Danny ignores it.

Danny is _cruel_.

"Seriously, dude. I need help with this firewall - "

"I am _not_ helping you commit illegal acts," Danny whispers, and Stiles makes with the puppy eyes. No, wait, the kitten eyes.

"Not even sodomy?"

Danny _snorts_. "That isn't illegal anymore. And stop trying to flirt with me. It never works."

"Aw, c'mon, man. Admit you find me attractive."

"I do not find you attractive. For the last time, Stiles, _I do not find you attractive_."

"You didn't have to say it _twice_. And you didn't have to _italicize_ it."

"I'll italicize whatever I damn well want to. And stop smirking, you haven't convinced me."

"Yet."

"What will you _do_ with all the stuff you'll find in there, anyway?"

Stiles whistles.

An expression of creeping horror fills Danny's face. "You - you'll jerk _off_ to it?"

Stiles sits up so quickly, his chair screeches. "What? No. _No_, that is some _weird shit_ - I just whistled because - it was supposed to mean 'I'll take this secret with me to my grave,' not, 'and then I'll jerk off to it'. Jeez."

"So you want me to help you with something that you have to keep a secret, and that I'll never know anything about. _Why_ exactly should I help you, again?"

"Because, er. Because I asked you?"

"Stiles."

"Yeah?"

"Get out."

"We're in a _classroom_. And - I - I'll tell you what it's all about, okay? One day."

"When?"

"When I'm - when I'm not doing this anymore."

Danny looks at him narrowly. "Cut the crap, Stiles. Whatever you're doing, you're going to _keep_ doing it."

"Uh, what? No, I. How - how would you know?"

"Because you look like you think you're doing the right thing. Whatever that thing _is_."

"I… don't know if that's a complement, or whether you think I'm some kind of crazy hardass."

"Crazy, yes. Hardass? No."

"Hey, my ass is _rock_-hard. It's a damn fine ass. Which you're attracted to."

"Stiles. I. Am not. Attracted to you."

"To my a- "

"_Or_ to your ass."

"Bummer." Stiles blinks. "Heh. That - I didn't actually mean that to come out as a pun, but it totally _did_. Anyway, you think I'm doing the right thing. Or that I _think_ I am. Which means you don't think I'm an evil criminal out to destroy the city's infrastructure, or something. You basically think I'm a nice guy."

"If you get any nicer, you'll turn into a goddamn Care Bear."

Stiles winks. "But I'll be _your_ bear, darling."

Danny drops his head into his hands. "Just. Shut Up. Shut up and go away."

"And?"

"And," Danny mutters, "bring your laptop to my place. After school."

Stiles beams.

* * *

><p>Holy shit. So, okay, Russo <em>is<em> part of Lehrer's depraved little knitting circle. Stiles is going to start getting over that any minute now. He's going to stop being traumatized by the persistent _imagery_ of that any minute now. Jesus. Jesus, Mary and motherfucking Joseph.

There was some actual mother-fucking going on in there, Stiles is _certain_ of it. He's never going to be able to fap to good old-fashioned MILF porn, again. Damn it. When all this is done, he's going to burn the surveillance tapes and sacrifice them to Asmodeus. Buffy-style.

And maybe Stiles is at least half as suicidal as a kamikaze pilot, because he's spending his Saturday night outside Russo's safe-house on 53rd, wearing a hoodie and trying to loiter like a teenage delinquent as opposed to an undercover superhero. Except that he sort of _is_ a teenage delinquent as _well_ as an undercover superhero, although the 'super' part of it's somewhat lacking, right now. Mostly because Stiles just snagged his ripped jeans on a goddamn hydrant.

"Ha, ha," he says, when a passing pretzel vendor looks at him like he's a retard. "Um. I'm fine, just - I'm fine."

This is _not_ going well.

Technically, it should be easy as pie. All he's got to do is get into the second alley off 53rd, climb the walls, jump onto the nearest streetlight and plant tiny hack-feeds into the CCTV cameras, so that he'll have a view of the Russo's safe-house even when he's at home, pretending to play video games on his computer when he is, in fact, watching the city for crime.

Now, the thing is, Stiles should _already_ have access to this area's CCTV footage. But Lehrer's had blocks interfering with this particular streetlight's cameras, because he's a fucking congressman and can _do_ shit like that, making sure that it gets left out of the usual CCTV maintenance routes. He's obviously in bed with Russo - oh, gross, didn't need _that_ image - but he obviously _is_, because why else would the city's administration mysteriously 'forget' to do maintenance for _this_ particular street? Yeah, right.

Well, Stiles is here to do their maintenance for them.

He's going to put this cluster of CCTV cameras back on the grid - and Lehrer won't know a damn thing about it, because the hack-feeds will make 'em look like they're _still_ inactive. To anyone but Stiles, anyway.

Heh.

This is actually kind of cool. Some of the coolest stuff he's gotten to do, even. Now, if only he can stop being a lame-ass and tripping on his own_feet_, he can -

There. _There_. The pretzel vendor's gone, and the young businesswoman waiting for her boyfriend to pick her up in his shiny car is gone, too, and the street's empty.

Time to make his move.

Stiles slips into the alley off 53rd, jiggling a little, like he's just another guy in need of a piss.

Getting past Lehrer's firewalls and into his private store of intel wasn't easy, but Danny helped, and now, Stiles _knows_ that Russo isn't at the safe-house this week; he will be _next_ week, though, when there's some sort of big deal going down. Stiles has to get the cameras up and running _for_ that deal -

"Oof."

…And Stiles has to avoid walking into garbage dumpsters. Like he just did.

Great.

It's _dark_ in here, but that's kind of the point, and it's the reason Stiles chose this alley as his climbing-point, rather than the well-lit street outside. He scrabbles onto the lid of the nearest dumpster, ignoring the stench, and takes his grapples out of his back pocket. He's _just_ about to start climbing when -

- he's thrown against the wall.

Again.

"You've gotta stop _doing_ that," Stiles groans, when he's managed to catch his breath. Howl has his hand behind Stiles's head, at least, which is an improvement. Stiles really can't _afford_ any more brain damage courtesy of whichever surface Howl decides to bang his head against. He's pretty sure the back of his skull is permanently cracked.

"I thought I told you," rumbles the low, gravelly voice, "not to follow Russo."

"Uh, and since when are you my Dad? Unless you're _into_ that kind of thing, which - shit, okay, chill _out_. I'm here to - we need footage on this place, okay? Except that the CCTV cams are out, because Lehrer's a corrupt jackass. I'm just here to put them back in. _Relax_."

Derek steps back. He isn't in full-on Howl mode, anymore. "Go home."

"Nope." Stiles grins. "You can't make me. I can do things you can't, all right? You don't know anything about how to wire up a camera to a streetlight while also making it look like it _hasn't_ been wired up to a streetlight, and we need this, so let me do it."

"No."

"_Yes_."

"No."

They stare at each other.

Stiles sighs. "Is this a you're-too-young-to-get-killed thing? Because, you know, living in a city _with_ guys like Lehrer and Russo running it? That's deadly, right there."

"You don't need to involve yourself."

_Fuck_ this bullshit. "Don't tell me what I _need_. My Dad's out there, night after night, putting his neck on the line, and what I _need_ is to make sure he _keeps_ it."

Derek's eyes gleam at him in the dark. "And what if you can't keep yours?"

"Like I said, Beacon Hills is a dangerous place to live, anyway. Did you hear about the cheerleader that got killed just walking home, a couple days ago?"

"I found her killer."

"And then the cops found the killer's _innards_. Yeah. But you get what I'm saying, right?"

Derek is silent. Studying him.

It's unnerving, like it always is, and it makes Stiles wonder what Derek _sees_, when he looks at him. What Derek thinks about what he sees. "Anyway, you can't send me home unless you _carry_ me home by literally throwing me over your shoulder like a caveman's bride, which, uh, I don't think that'll help your publicity. At all."

"I'm not in this for the publicity."

"No," said Stiles, "you're not. And neither am I."

And they're back to staring at each other.

This is getting _really_ old, and Stiles is just about to throw caution to the wind and start climbing, _anyway_, when Derek grunts.

"Do it."

Do - do it. Derek wants him to _do it_. A part of Stiles's brain is busy coordinating his hands so that he doesn't, like, drop the grapples, but the rest of it is busy recording and re-recording the exact sound of Derek saying 'Do it', so that Stiles can replay it later, when he's in the shower, sucking his own fingers and pretending that Derek's just told Stiles to suck _him_.

Derek's nostrils flare.

"Um. You can just - ignore that smell, okay? It's just me being a horny teenager. You were a horny teenager once, too, right?"

Derek tilts his head. His _ears_ flick forward. It's seriously bizarre, because they're more wolfish than human, right now, and Stiles has to stop thinking about other things that might change along with the rest of Derek's body, and whether or not knotting actually exists in werewolves and also what that would _feel_ like, inside of him, inside his ass, inside his _mouth_ -

Stiles gulps. And turns around. And tries to fasten the grapples with shaking hands. "Y-you can… go on ahead. And do whatever you, um, were going to do. I'll just - "

Derek picks him up. Just - _picks him up_, and, like, _jumps_. Up to the _second floor_.

"HolyGAH!"

"Quiet."

"You just - what're you - "

Derek sets him down.

Stiles wobbles.

He's damn lucky he doesn't _fall_, because they're on a _ledge_, and Stiles's arms cartwheel for a cartoonish moment before his hands grab onto the sill of the nearest window.

"Shit. Shit. _Shit_." He's hyperventilating. He can't _stop_ hyperventilating. The fact that he's half-hard after just a split-second of having that muscled arm wrapped around his waist isn't even the _point_; he's so freaked out, he can't concentrate on being turned on. Which is a good thing, probably. Definitely.

"Breathe."

"You - I can't _believe_ you! What the hell was that?"

"If we're attacked, it's better that you haven't already exhausted yourself by climbing a building."

Stiles boggles. "So you, what, just picked me up like a _puppy_? You can't randomly manhandle people like that! What if I - " _creamed my pants_ " - pissed myself?"

"You didn't."

"Only because my _bladder_ was as scared as I was, okay? It was _frozen in terror_! Fuck!"

Derek… rolls his shoulders. "You don't weigh much."

"That has _nothing to do with what I just said_."

"Get on with it."

"Get - " Stiles is starting to wonder if Derek's doing this _deliberately_ - saying things that make Stiles's inner voice-recorder go into fantasy-storage overdrive. But he isn't, right? Making fun of stupid boys and their stupid hard-ons is something big damn heroes should be _above_ doing. Right?

Right.

Stiles extends a line across to the streetlight and edges his way across, somehow managing to keep his balance and not making himself look like even more of an incompetent fool. The second floor's just opposite the head of the streetlight, which makes it a hell of a lot easier, as does the fact that it's too late in the night for anyone to enter this alley and catch him at it. Stiles gets there, pulls the circuit-breakers and hack-feeds out of his other-other-other pocket (he's taken up sewing, out of necessity, not that he'll ever admit it in public) and sets to work with the screwdriver disguised as a pen in his _other_-other pocket.

It takes all of fifteen minutes. Piece of cake, really.

He turns and makes his way back, retracting the line behind him. He fully expects Derek to have vanished into the night - that's what he _does_ - but Derek's still standing there, watching him, giving out that creepy, voyeuristic Batman vibe. It's a good thing Howl doesn't hang out in public parks to watch children play, or people might think he's out to _eat_ said children. In literal or metaphorical ways.

"What're you still doing here?"

"You are competent," says Derek, and Stiles huffs.

"Wow, I'm _competent_. Thanks so much for the complement. And also, since you apparently have selective hearing when it comes to my questions - what are you still doing here?"

"I will investigate Russo's safe-house."

"Um… no, I don't think you will. Because it's a _safe-house_. Which means it's probably rigged with more security alarms than most bank vaults."

Derek looks at him.

Stiles looks back.

Derek keeps looking.

"Oh, _hell_, no. That's - that's why you haven't sent me back, isn't it? You fucking hypocrite. Keeping me out of danger, my ass."

"Your ass?" repeats Derek, slowly, in a gently _interrogative_ tone, and Stiles flushes.

Okay, so big damn heroes _aren't_ above poking fun at teenage hormones. "You're such a bastard. So you expect me to disarm his security alarms for you? _Without_ taking me on as your - " _sidekick_, he doesn't say, because he'll end up dying from _aneurysms_ if he becomes this manipulative son-of-a-bitch's sidekick " - ally?"

"You already are my ally."

Stiles… stares.

And breathes.

And stares.

And hopes that the way his heart is thumping is at least a _little_ less obvious than the way his whole _body_ is blushing.

"Uh." Stiles swallows. He - he's got to stop blushing. He isn't a _girl_, for god's sake. It isn't like Derek's just asked to _marry_ him. "Yeah. I mean, obviously, I'm an awesome ally. Of equal status. I'm totally equal. To you. In some ways, I'm _better_ than you, because I have the _brains_, whereas you have the… really brawny brawn, and the, um, massive shoulders, and the sculpted abs, and the face out of GQ, and the…" Stiles trails off. "I'll shut up, now."

Derek just raises an eyebrow. It's such a perfect eyebrow. Stiles hates it.

"The safe-house is basically just a split apartment on the second and third floors, and since we're on the second floor, we might as well enter from here. First, I've gotta disable any cameras in the hallway leading _up_ to the apartment, and then, we'll… disarm the system at the door. Capiche?"

"Got it. What should I do?"

Derek is asking him what to do. _Derek_ is asking _him_ what to do. _Derek is asking him what to do._

Stiles manages to bite back the first five things that leap to his mouth, including but not limited to, _drop and give me five, soldier, or maybe just drop trou and give me five minutes with that beautiful -_

No.

Derek's eyebrow is still raised. Derek can probably _smell_ what he's _thinking_.

Stiles gulps. Around a very, very dry throat. And rasps: "Um, just - just follow me. And make sure you're wolfed out. Once we're inside the apartment, I might not be able to take all the cameras down, and you - you can't show up on any of them as anything but Howl."

"What about you?"

Stiles flicks up his hoodie. "Done."

"Is that - "

"It's enough. The shadows will do the rest, this time of night. We'll wipe any evidence before we leave. I've got gloves, you know, for the fingerprints. Not that _you've_ gotta worry, with the, er, paw-prints. Ain't no lab in the city capable of matching _those_."

Derek's studying him. Again.

"Yeah, yeah, I'm competent. Big surprise. Now follow along, there's a good doggy."

Derek _growls_. With fangs.

Stiles is totally not terrified by that. Much.

Turns out the corridor only has two cameras, when they swing into it from the window Stiles had been previously clinging to for life - and they're easy to disable, too. It's almost _too_ easy, like one of those super-hard levels on _Dungeons and Dragons_ that becomes deceptively simple just before landing you in the proverbial shit-heap, and Stiles keeps having to fight off this sharp, freaky feeling that something is about to go suddenly, horribly wrong.

But it _can't_, because a) Russo isn't here and b) nobody knows _they're_ here. The place is clean; Derek would've sniffed out any inhabitants or interlopers. Also, neither Lehrer nor Russo know that the Ghost has hacked into their black books and has passed on the location of every prominent mafia safe-house in the city to Howl, his… ally. His ridiculously sexy ally. His _equal_.

Stiles is going to have a giggly, girly fit about that in the privacy of his own room. Later.

But _now_, he's going to focus on decoding the keypad next to the apartment door.

He has to use his mini-flashlight, though, because _he_ isn't the one blessed with mutant night-vision, and the keys on the pad are fucking _tiny_. His fingers feel huge, just prying the cover off, even though he knows that compared to _Derek's_ fingers, his own are like chopsticks. Lilliputian chopsticks.

The secret to disarming any security system is identifying the brand. Each brand has its quirks, strengths and weaknesses - its own personality, even - and the signature loops on _this_ one are a dead giveaway.

It's a Mantra 11.6 GXS system, industry standard, connected to plenty of mid-level trips just inside the door and at least fifteen others in the apartment at large, and _that's_ difficult enough to calm Stiles's nerves. Slightly.

The whole thing takes about an hour, not counting the minutes he spends jolting back to reality, and to the realization that Derek is standing just behind him, practically breathing down his _neck_, radiating irresistible werewolf pheromones, or maybe just _Derek_ pheromones. Stiles really doesn't know.

"Could you, um… back off, a little? I'm trying to concentrate."

Derek makes an odd, subvocal sound - something between a grumble and a snarl - and backs off.

Stiles ties up the last few trips, making them cancel each other out without actually deactivating the system completely, because that? Absolutely_will_ set off the back-up alarm. Which Stiles isn't touching, at all, because of the _third_ back-up alarm.

This is the good shit. Russo's a mafia overlord, all right. Not many companies outside of the Fortune 500 can even afford security systems like that.

Once the last trip is done, Stiles sits back, wiping his forehead. Has he been sweating, all this time? "Phew. That was intense."

Derek is quiet.

"Um. Hello?" Stiles turns to see Derek just… looming there, like he always does, but there's something kind of - _different_ about him. "Sourwolf?"

Derek snaps to attention, and Stiles realizes what was weird about him - his pupils were dilated, because now, they're shrinking. "Kid."

"Yeah. Kid. The kid you snuck in here with? Your ally?"

Derek shakes his head; his eyes clear up a bit more.

"Are you… all right?" Stiles raises a careful hand, then lets it drop. "You haven't gotten gassed by some booby-trap, have you?"

"No," Derek says. His _voice_ is weird, too. All thick and… _thick_. And he's looking at Stiles funny. "Wipe your sweat."

"Huh? I just did."

"Do it again."

"Since when have you turned into a schoolmarm? Seriously." Stiles wipes his sweat. Dabs at his throat, even, just to be thorough. "There. Better?"

"Better." And just like that, Derek's back to normal - normal for a shirtless werewolf breaking into a mafia don's safe-house in the middle of the night, anyway. He jerks his chin at the keypad. "We're in?"

"We're in. So if you're done having your positronic meltdown or whatever, maybe we could _go_ in?"

Derek glowers at him.

"Just saying."

They go in. Or _start_ to.

"Wait, wait," Stiles says, and Derek freezes.

"What?"

"I'm trying to open the door. With my mind."

Derek rolls his eyes. Rolls his _eyes_, and okay, that's _unjustified_ -

"Hey, don't knock my Jedi mind tricks. I can change the colors on the _traffic lights_."

"If you don't shut up, I'll rip your tongue out. With my teeth."

"Do you even _realize_ how dirty that sounds? And disturbingly gory, yeah, but mostly - "

"Open. The damn. Door."

Stiles opens the door.

Thankfully, Derek's done wolfing out by the time they're inside, and Stiles has his hoodie, so even though they've probably been caught on film by _something_ in the apartment, the only shapes that'll show up are one hulky, furry blur and an unknown teenage delinquent turned undercover superhero.

For the first time in a long time, Stiles feels like he's earned the 'super' part.

* * *

><p><strong>to be continued.<strong>

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